Former University of Georgia football standout and decades-long Texas resident Herschel Walker is running for U.S. Senate as a Republican in Georgia, setting up a high-profile primary race in a crucial battleground state.
Walker enters a growing field to unseat Democrat Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black U.S. senator, with strong encouragement from former President Donald Trump, who has been fixated on Georgia politics since narrowly losing the state’s 16 electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election.
The 1982 Heisman Trophy winner and Wrightsville, Ga., native has long lived in Texas after a professional football career that ended in Dallas, but changed his voter registration last week to an Atlanta house owned by his wife, Julie Blanchard. Blanchard is under investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported she voted in Georgia despite living in Texas.
Walker has also repeated false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, despite elections officials finding no evidence of widespread fraud that affected the outcome.
The Senate campaign paperwork filed Tuesday ends months of speculation about Walker’s political plans, including a prediction in June from Trump that the football star would soon suit up for the Republican primary.
“He told me he’s going to, and I think he will,” Trump said on the conservative talk radio Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show late June. “I had dinner with him a week ago. He’s a great guy. He’s a patriot. And he’s a very loyal person, he’s a very strong person. They love him in Georgia, I’ll tell you.”
There are currently three other candidates running for the Republican nomination to challenge Warnock: Gary Black, Georgia’s Agriculture Commissioner; Kelvin King, a Black military veteran and construction company owner who helped Trump launch his “Black Voices” coalition” and Latham Saddler, a Navy veteran and banking executive.
Walker enters the race as a first-time candidate, but a recent poll by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling Group had Walker with high favorability ratings and name recognition among Republican voters and trails incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock by the smallest margin, 48-46.
Warnock took office in January after a historic special election runoff that saw Democrats take control of the chamber, and the seat is a top target for Republicans heading into the 2022 midterms.
Walker also comes with potential baggage that could harm his chances in both the primary and general election, including his Texas residency. Walker has also been open about his struggles with mental health and dissociative identity disorder, including alleged violent outbursts against his ex-wife Cindy Grossman.
A recent Associated Press report also chronicled more details of the divorce, including previously unreported threats against his ex-wife, overstated claims about his business dealings and erratic behavior around business partners.
